In a short video called "The Program," Binney explains how the agency took part of one of the programs he built and started using it to spy on virtually every U.S. citizen without warrants under the code-name Stellar Wind.

Binney details how the top-secret surveillance program, the scope of which has never been made public, can track electronic activities—phone calls, emails, banking and travel records, social media—and map them to collect "all the attributes that any individual has" in every type of activity and build a profile based on that data.

"So that now I can pull your entire life together from all those domains and map it out and show your entire life over time," Binney says.

Seriously however, that's the real problem with surveillance technologies. They're addictive and they beg to be used. Sad when the people who have sworn an oath to protect the United States of America and all that it stands for have probably done more in the last 20 years to undermine it than the efforts of any "Evil Empire" ever did.

But that's what happens when the paranoia and political ideologies of some in power no longer allows them to see the fundamentaldifference between acts of patriotism and acts of treason. And once such people adopt the premise that "the ends justify the means," there can no longer be any difference.

But the goal of this sort of thing isn't to prevent crime. It's to protect the security and secrecy of certain entrenched political interests.

Like Hoover said, justice is incidental to enforcing law and order. So is fighting crime since people who are victimized by criminals provide the convenient benefit of demanding more restrictive laws and a larger police presence to enforce them.

To those who pull strings, ongoing violent crime is a win-win. Especially for the proponents of expanded government authority.

But the goal of this sort of thing isn't to prevent crime. It's to protect the security and secrecy of certain entrenched political interests.

Like Hoover said, justice is incidental to enforcing law and order. So is fighting crime since people who are victimized by criminals provide the convenient benefit of demanding more restrictive laws and a larger police presence to enforce them.

To those who pull strings, ongoing violent crime is a win-win. Especially for the proponents of expanded government authority.

But the goal of this sort of thing isn't to prevent crime. It's to protect the security and secrecy of certain entrenched political interests.

Like Hoover said, justice is incidental to enforcing law and order. So is fighting crime since people who are victimized by criminals provide the convenient benefit of demanding more restrictive laws and a larger police presence to enforce them.

To those who pull strings, ongoing violent crime is a win-win. Especially for the proponents of expanded government authority.

In fact I would not doubt that the bulk of the recent hacking attacks by Anonymous and it's subsidaries, have in fact been the handiwork of government operatives running covert.

Breaking news of such things drives people into a security frenzy, and after their local IT department informs them that the best isn't perfect, they turn to the government to put a stop to such wrongdoings. Which of course means more hassle for the honest people on the internet, as regulations and intrusions into privacy become the main event.

I've suspected as much. Especially anything that claimed to have penetrated major government or military networks.

Breaking news of such things drives people into a security frenzy, and after their local IT department informs them that the best isn't perfect, they turn to the government to put a stop to such wrongdoings. Which of course means more hassle for the honest people on the internet, as regulations and intrusions into privacy become the main event.

Every tyranny has had it's birth in a national emergency.

The Roman emperors gained their power when the Roman Republic willingly handed it over to them in the face of a military emergency. Hitler rode into power following the Reichstag Fire. Queen Elizabeth gained her real power (and created the first modern police state) in response to the demands of her own subjects to deal with the threat from Spain and the Roman Church. And the United States threw out it's Constitution, and systematically betrayed every one of it's founding principles, first with the Civil War, then with the Cold War, and then finally and completely with the advent of the "War on Terror" - while the members of the Senate and Congress cheered. Incidently, the "War on Terror" really isn't a 'war' so much as it's a marketing tool. It's the newest riff on the concept of the "endless war." Something effectively put to good use by none other than Chairman Mao. (Since every revolution eventually becomes a new power - which in turn sets the stage for the next revolution - the most efficient way to avoid a counter-revolution is to make sure the current "revolution" never ends. Sweet!)